


The Hardest Button To Button

by le_chat_vilain



Series: The Joker and the Thief [10]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham City Sirens (Comics), Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Action, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_chat_vilain/pseuds/le_chat_vilain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harley comes bearing bad news in the wake of the night club explosion that will test the strength of Hawkins’ relationship with the Joker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest Button To Button

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little bit of filler and plot laying, lots happening but nothing really note worthy all the same. Think of it as the opening bars of the Jaws theme.
> 
> Soundtrack: The Hardest Button To Button by The White Stripes

We lay low for the next few days, let the ripples of our impromptu mass murder be felt throughout the city. They finally have confirmation that I exist, that the Joker does indeed have a new Bonnie to his Clyde, but they can’t for the life of them figure out who I am; we’ve got them on the ropes and it’s hilarious.

“What’re they calling me?” I ask him, plonking down on the couch next to him as he scrolls through the headlines on the iPad I stole for him a few weeks ago. He glances at me with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, and I reach for the device but he pulls it away at the last second. “Come on! Is it good? Or is it shit? Oh, man, it’s shit isn’t it? Tell me!”

“Actually, it’s not bad,” He turns it around so I can see the screen.

“Lady Anarchy?” I mull it over. “Sounds like a fucking perfume for goth teenagers.”

He laughs at me and I whack him on the head with the gadget.

“Ow!” he exclaims, “Jeeze, it could be worse, you could be Captain Boomerang.”

He has a point. It might sound like an in house fragrance from Hot Topic, but at least I don’t have it as bad as Digger.

“Point taken. The fake accent definitely paid off.”

“It did, that was a nice touch,” he points out, pulling me into his lap, facing him. “Wouldn’t say no to you busting that out a little more often…”

“Oh, is that so, darling…” I tease him, slipping back into the British inflection with ease.

As he’s about to kiss me there’s a sudden banging at the door that scares us both half out of our skins. We look at each other and I get up, grab a gun from the coffee table, and approach the door slowly, rising up onto my toes to look through the peephole.

“Hey! You lovebirds home? We gotta situation happenin’ ya know!”

I breathe a sigh of both relief and irritation and open the door, and Harley practically trips over the threshold.

He shoots me a disgruntled look that seems to indicate I must’ve known she was coming, and I return it with one of annoyed shock and a serving of shrug.

“What are you doing here, Harley?” I inquire. We had agreed that she’d never come here unannounced.

“They took her,” she pants.

“Who?” we ask in perfect unison.

“Kitty! They know she knows! They know she knows you.”

I let him slink off to the bedroom before he gets too worked up by her presence, and sit her down to get the whole story. Some uniformed police showed at their door last night asking questions about me. According to Harley, Selina was nothing but civil, yet they insisted she came down to the precinct to make a statement. When morning came and she still hadn’t called for a ride home, Harley went down there only to find that she’d been carted off to Arkham for “aggressive behavior.”

“That doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t sound like her,” I muse. Selina was always cool, calm, and collected when dealing with the boys in blue; she wasn’t like the rest of us. Even if she did decide to rough them up, none of those fat asses would have been able to subdue her once the fur started to fly. “And they were asking…about me? How could they have possibly known to go to you guys, to her?”

“I dunno, but please, you gotta help me get her back,” she begs, taking my hands in hers and fixing her baby blues on me like she always does when she wants something. “They plugged up all my ways in, Red’s in Costa Rica lookin’ for some jackass she used ta know…I can’t do this one alone, kid.”

“We don’t gotta do shit,” he snaps at her from the doorway, now fully dressed in deep purple skinny jeans and a faded back t-shirt. I give him the stink eye over my shoulder but it has no effect. “What? We don’t! What’s it to us if they wanna skin a cat?”

“Give us a moment, will you, Harls?” I ask her with a forced smile, and I stalk over to him.

“What is your problem? And don’t blame her,” I snarl at him.

“It’s not our concern,” he growls back through clenched teeth.

“Not our concern? Not our concern, huh? Need I remind you that she knows where we live, she knows I’m Lady Anarchy, and that where she is now, she may have absolutely no control over whether or not those things stay a secret, regardless of whether she wants to keep them that way or not. The point is, she could fuck us over right now, and the longer she’s in there the better the chance is of that happening. So, this is absolutely our fucking concern, Jay.” He looks away, chastised, knowing I have a point. “So you can either pull your head out of your ass and get on board, or stay the hell out of my way. What’s it gonna be?”

“This is obviously a trap, and I am not gonna let you just walk into it.”

“Oh! Like I need your permission?”

“Please,” he begs me, grabbing my wrist and pulling me close so that he can whisper. His eyes are drilling into mine, pleading with me through shades of exasperation, fear, and love. “Baby, I know you know I’m right.”

For a second I almost let him win, when the sincerity in his tone and the love in his eyes almost break me down. He is right, it probably is a trap, but I’m right too, and I’ll walk into a trap a thousand times over if it means keeping our life here safe, keeping him safe.

“Look, worst case scenario, the Cat rolls on us, we gotta find somewhere new to live, big deal. You go to them, on their home turf, half cocked with idiot Barbie over there, you know what the worst case scenario is? You never come back and I’m…what am I supposed to do then?”

“So come with us,” I counter, even though I can see his mind’s made up. “Give us a better chance of pulling it off.”

“And give ‘em two for the price of one? I don’t think so. Don’t go.”

“I have to,” I whisper back, and wriggle free of his grasp, turning to Harley and giving her a solemn but curt nod. He shakes his head at me and I can feel the waves of anger, disappointment, and fear rolling off him as he backs away. I watch him as he grabs his gear bag from the cage and his coat from the hook by the door. He fishes his keys from the surgical bowl and reaches for the doorknob, turning to face me.

“I love you, but even I think this is insane.”

He shoots a glare at Harley before opening the door and stalking off to find some poor soul to torture until he feels better about all this. I wait for him to slam it behind him but he doesn’t, he instead chooses to leave it open knowing how much it pisses me off; something he only ever does when he’s really steamed. After staring for a minute, I finally march over and slam it hoping it will calm me down. It doesn’t.

“He…did he just say…?” Harley asks tentatively after a long silence. “He said he loved you…”

“If this is a joke, Harley, then so help me God, I will kill you. Do you understand?” I seethe at her and she nods frantically in response. “Good. And yes, he did.”

“And…do you?” she continues her inquiry, curiosity, hurt, and even shades of jealousy playing across her face.

“The only reason I’m doing this is because I love him. Selina rolls on me in there…it’s more than just my ass on the line.”

“She won’t do that to you, kid,” she tries to comfort me, but we both know with the way things have been lately there’s every chance she might. Plus, in Arkham, there’s every chance they won’t leave her a choice.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

We spitball ideas on how to pull it off for the next half hour, and I find myself wishing he was here, missing his input and the way he always picks up the shortcomings of my plans and helps me plug up the holes. Now all I can hear is him in my ear telling me it’s a trap.

“Wait, it’s clearly a trap right?”

“Well…I’d say that’s pretty safe to assume, yeah.”

“So…why bother with discretion at all? I mean, they’re expecting us, so…”

“You’re not seriously suggestin’ we just, walk up ta the front door and knock, are ya?” Harley gawks at me. “Whaddaya wanna bring a casserole along too?”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting – not the casserole, the door,” I tell her, a glint in my eye and a grin on my lips. If we were going to do something insane, we were going to commit to it one hundred percent; in for a penny, in for a pound. “You got your shit with you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Suit up, we leave in an hour.”

We manage to get there in time for the morning visitation. I park the bike at the back of the parking lot where it looks like nobody has set foot in years, and quickly check my paint job and contacts in the wing mirrors.

“Right, wait here,” I instruct.

“Wait here? Are you crazy, kid? You can’t go in there alone!” she exclaims.

“Harley, if we go in there together then it’s as good as admitting you and Pam are connected to me too, and that puts both your heads on the chopping block. I go in there alone, they don’t get any new information,” I lie. The truth is I’m considering making a mess that I’d rather not have Harley know I’m responsible for.

“Yeah, but what if they find out who ya are?”

“It was bound to happen eventually. Just stay here until you hear the alarms go off, or I will make you,” I draw a pistol and point it at her foot.

“Okay, okay! And if they don’t go off?” she asks.

“Give me an hour. If we’re not out by then and you haven’t heard from me…just improvise.”

“Love’s changed you, ya know, kid,” she says. “I never in a million years woulda thought you’d actually put other people first. Neither of ya. Be careful in there.”

“I will. Remember what I said. One hour.”

As I crack my neck and start up the stairs to the doors of the asylum, I find myself wondering if what she said is true, if I really have changed. I know he has, that’s clear, but am I really that different? Am I just using the off chance that Selina might betray me as an excuse to actually risk my life and save a friend? To be a hero for once? Or is it that stubborn feeling of being beholden to her rearing its ugly head? Then I remember the answer I gave Harley back at the bunker, when she asked me if I loved him:

_The only reason I’m doing this is because I love him._

Plain as day, my own words, as selfless and honest as I’ve ever been. I might try to dress it up as self servitude, but it would all be spin; if I die today he’ll still be safe, and I’ll go out with a bang knowing I did everything I could to keep him that way. It wasn’t about Selina or her salvation, it was about him and his protection. If it was ever about her, then I wouldn’t be heading in there with the intent of simply putting her down the second I see her to make sure this never happens again.

“Into the belly of the beast,” I mutter to myself, and draw a second pistol from the holster on my thigh. Then I kick open the door, and march into the flood of fluorescent light.

 


End file.
